What do these famous cover stars look like now?

The Nirvana baby. The Siamese Dream girls. The Arctic Monkeys debut album guy. What are the names behind the album cover personalities?

Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)

One of the most famous cover stars of all time, young Spencer Elden was captured aged three months old in a swimming pool in Pasadena. His father Rick was a friend of photographer Kirk Weddle, who was setting up the shoot for the album cover.

Nirvana - Nevermind album cover.
Picture:
Press

"It's kind of cool, knowing that I've been on an album cover," Spencer told the Independent in 2008, when he recreated the pose, then aged 17. "But I feel pretty normal about it because growing up, I've always known I was the Nirvana baby. It never really struck me like, 'Oh, shit, that's me on the cover'."

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (1993)

Two young girls playing dress-up and eating sweeties - the ideal way to depict a guitar-thrashing grunge classic, according to Billy Corgan.

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream album cover.
Picture:
Press

When Billy reunited Smashing Pumpkins in 2018, he enlisted the help of the two girls - Ali Laenger and Lysandra Roberts - to launch the tour. And here’s how they looked 25 years later. As Corgan said: “What's amazing is their chemistry with one another still leaps through the camera to this day.”

The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make

The original cover for the classic Smiths single featured actor Terence Stamp on the sleeve in a still taken from the 1965 movie adaptation of John Fowles' The Collector. He's pictured holding a chloroformed pad that he's used to "collect" a young female student.

The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make (original version).
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Press

At first Stamp denied permission for the photo to be used on the single, meaning Morrissey himself stepped in to re-create the scene with a glass of milk in the place of the chloroform pad. However, Stamp later relented, meaning the Moz version only appeared on a few copies.

The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make (Morrissey version).
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Press

Stamp made his name in the title role of Billy Budd in 1962 and went on to have memorable roles in Superman II as General Zod (KNEEL before Zod) and Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert.

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead (1986)

The cover of the 'Miffs' classic album features a shot of the French-Swiss actor Alain Delon, taken from the 1964 film L'Insoumis (aka The Unvanquished). Delon plays a deserter from the French Foreign Legion and was also a producer on the picture. It's taken from the final scene, where Alain's character lies dying on the floor.

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead album cover.
Picture:
Press

Monsieur Delon has also appeared in films such as The Leopard (1963), The Yellow Rolls Royce (1965), Spirits Of The Dead (1968), Girl On A Motorcycle (1968, with Marianne Faithfull) and Scorpio (1973). His latest film is The Empty House, due in 2019.

Blink 182 - Enema Of The State

The nurse with a wicked look in her eye is none other than porn star Janine Lindemulder (although the band claim that they didn't know this at the time). The rubber glove was a reference to the band's original title, Turn Your Head And Cough.

Blink-182 - Enema Of The State album cover.
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Press

Ms Lindemulder is the star of such cinematic masterpieces as Extreme Close Up (1997), Hidden Obsessions (1994) and Seven Deadly Sins (2000). She was arrested in 2003 for assaulting her husband Jesse James and in 2008 was sent to prison for six months for tax evasion.

The Smiths - The Smiths (1984)

Joe Dallesandro was a muscle man, model, actor and a graduate of Andy Warhol's Factory school of non-talent. The debut album from The Smiths shows a cropped shot of Little Joe from Warhol's 1968 art movie Trash.

Joe Dallesandro also claimed to be the crotch behind the controversial sleeve to the Stones' first album on their own label. As he was a mate of Andy Warhol, who did the art direction, it's a reasonable claim, but one that has not been, er, verified.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers (1971).
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Press

The actor appeared in many of Warhol's challenging art movies, including Flesh, Trash and Heat. He's also appeared in John Waters' Cry Baby and Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club, but we consider his best work to be the 1970s camp-gore classics Flesh For Frankenstein and Blood For Dracula.

Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory (1995)

The two men walking in different directions down Berwick Street in London's Soho one early morning in 1995 are Owen Morris, who produced the record and Sean Rowley.

Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
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Press

Rowley is a presenter for BBC Radio, but is probably best known for his club night Guilty Pleasures, which has spawned a number of albums.

Sean Rowley.
Picture:
Chris Jackson/Getty Images

U2 - Boy (1980)

Young Peter Rowen was the younger brother of Guggi, member of Irish post-punk band The Virgin Prunes and a close friend of Bono. The US record label were worried that the band may be accused of paedophilia for some reason and changed the cover for Stateside release.

Placebo - Placebo (1996)

David Fox is the young boy pictured on the cover of the band's 1996 debut album. The picture was shot by his cousin Saul Fletcher.

Placebo - Placebo album cover.
Picture:
Press

In June 2012, Fox told The Times he was going to sue over the album cover as it "ruined his life" because he was bullied at school. Fox was last seen in the identity parade on an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks in October 2013.

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